“In Court 'Cause I Stole a Beat”1 : the Digital Music
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“IN COURT ‘CAUSE I STOLE A BEAT”1: THE DIGITAL MUSIC SAMPLING DEBATE’S DISCOURSE ON RACE AND CULTURE, AND THE NEED FOR TEST CASE LITIGATION TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction ......................................................................................... 142 II. Background ......................................................................................... 145 A. What Digital Music Sampling is—And is Not ............................ 145 1. Kicking it Old School: A Brief History of Borrowing .......... 145 2. Contemporary Sampling: From the Caribbean to the Bronx ........................................................................... 146 3. MIDI-Me ............................................................................... 147 4. “Straight from [the] Heart”—Why Contemporary Artists Sample ....................................................................... 148 III. Analysis ............................................................................................... 150 A. Legal Treatment of Digital Sampling .......................................... 150 1. “Thou Shalt Not Steal”—Grand Upright Ltd. v. Warner Bros. Records, Inc. ................................................................ 150 2. “Get a License or Do Not Sample”—Bridgeport Music Inc. v. Dimension Films ........................................................ 152 3. “They Gonna Make an Example”: The Arrest of DJ Drama .......................................................................... 155 4. Girl Talk ................................................................................ 158 5. Utility Maximization and Distributional Consequences ........ 161 IV. Recommendation ................................................................................ 162 A. A “Cultural Offense”: A Test Case Litigation Strategy .............. 162 B. Complications and Questions ................................................ 164 V. Conclusion .......................................................................................... 166 “He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening mine.” –Thomas Jefferson2 1. PUBLIC ENEMY, Caught, Can We Get a Witness?, on IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK (Def Jam Records 1988). 2. THOMAS JEFFERSON, THE JEFFERSONIAN CYCLOPEDIA 433 (John P. Foley ed., 1900), available at 141 142 JOURNAL OF LAW, TECHNOLOGY & POLICY [Vol. 2012 I. INTRODUCTION For twenty years, the technology of digital music sampling has existed in legal purgatory. As the debate over sampling continues, the stakes have never been higher. While the production of art forms utilizing sampling technology continues to expand,3 the criminal and civil sanctions for those caught “stealing a beat”4 are increasingly harsh. Statutory damages run as high as $30,000 for a single act of infringement while compensatory damages can reach $150,000, and there are punitive damages, attorney fees, and recommendations for criminal charges as well.5 Criminal liability is a significant threat to those artists who utilize digital sampling technologies, as demonstrated by the FBI raid on the Atlanta office of hip-hop music executive DJ Drama in 2007.6 Understanding how and why modern artists are constrained in their ability to utilize digital sampling technologies depends on a proper appreciation of the historical inequalities perpetuated by the copyright regime against minority artists.7 In this context, it is unfortunately of little surprise that DJs of color are adversely affected by the prosecution of digital sampling technology use.8 What is surprising, however, is the lack of litigation between sampling artists, record labels, and the Recording Industry Association of http://books.google.com/books?id=icGh3NxREIIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0 #v=snippet&q=He%20who%20receives%20an%20idea&f=false. 3. In spite of a slumping environment for CD sales, the industry of selling mixtapes on the street continues to thrive. Shaheem Reid, Mixtapes: The Other Music Industry, MTV, at 2 (2007), http:// www.mtv.com/bands/m/mixtape/news_feature_021003/index.jhtml. Not only are mixtapes cheaper than regular albums sold at retail outlets, but to discerning listeners the quality is noticeably higher. Id. 4. PUBLIC ENEMY, supra note 1. 5. 17 U.S.C. §§ 502(a), 504–506(a) (2006). 6. Kelefa Sanneh, With Arrest of DJ Drama, the Law Takes Aim at Mixtapes, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 19, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/technology/19iht-web.0119mixtapes.html. DJ Drama (Tyree Simmons) and an associate were charged with a felony violation of Georgia’s Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization (“RICO”) statute for allegedly heading a criminal ring of copyright infringement through the production of mix tapes. K. Matthew Dames, Mix Tapes Compared to Cocaine?, COPYCENSE (Feb. 7, 2007, 9:00 AM), http://www.copycense.com/2007/02/mix_tapes_compa.html. The Fulton County Sheriff’s Department confiscated 81,000 mixtape CDs along with computers, recording equipment, financial statements, and “other assets that are proceeds of a pattern of illegal activity.” Hillary Crosley, DJ Drama Arrested In Mixtape Raid, BILLBOARD (Jan. 17, 2007), http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display. jsp?vnu_content_id=1003533767#/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003533767; Sanneh, supra. For a detailed discussion of DJ Drama’s arrest, see infra Part III.A.3. 7. For a detailed discussion of how American copyright has failed African-American artists, see K.J. Greene, “Copynorms,” Black Cultural Production, And The Debate Over African-American Reparations, 25 CARDOZO ARTS & ENT. L.J. 1179, 1181 (2008) [hereinafter Greene, Copynorms] (noting the copyright system’s long history of appropriation of African-American music without compensation). See also K.J. Greene, Copyright, Culture & Black Music: A Legacy of Unequal Protection, 21 HASTINGS COMM. & ENT. L.J. 339, 340 (1999) [hereinafter Greene, Unequal Protection] (arguing that the American copyright regime has systematically failed African-American artists). 8. See Sanneh, supra note 6 (describing the arrest of DJ Drama in 2007). Other notable examples include the decisions of the Southern District of New York and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals finding African-American rap artists Biz Markie and N.W.A., respectively, liable for copyright infringement. See Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, 410 F.3d 792, 793 (6th Cir. 2005); Grand Upright Music Ltd. v. Warner Bros. Records, Inc., 780 F. Supp. 182, 182 (S.D.N.Y. 1991). For a detailed discussion of the prosecution of black artists who use digital sampling, see infra Parts III.A.1-3. No. 1] ‘CAUSE I STOLE A BEAT 143 America (“RIAA”).9 Given the unequal distributional effects of the copyright system, a realistic solution is therefore needed that challenges the dominant ways courts think about what constitutes “valid” culture. Some commentators, especially those in the “copy left,” have already stressed the need for copyright to take into account the culture of reinvention and recontextualization (loosely termed “borrowing”) prevalent in non- Western art forms specifically, and digital sampling generally.10 But while most commentators focus on amending the Copyright Act, this Note proposes that samplers and their advocates grasp the opportunity to introduce their own norms of cultural production into the court system via new litigation strategies. Such efforts may follow the lead of the NAACP test cases, as well as proponents of the “cultural defense” who challenge American courts’ unwillingness to admit cultural evidence and defenses in criminal and civil cases.11 By doing so, those advocates seek to demonstrate how judicial interpretations of culture inform determinations of guilt and innocence.12 As copyright law is an “ongoing social negotiation”13 charged with regulating the boundaries of what society considers appropriate artistic and cultural expression, so should it account for culture in forming its regulations. Only by doing so can the American copyright regime attain legitimacy among those groups who have been traditionally denied its fruits, 14 as well as strike the proper balance between promoting creative production and compensating artists for original work. Such a discussion is increasingly important because legal treatment of sampling extends far beyond the hip-hop community.15 To the extent that 9. See Daphne Keller, The Musician as Thief: Digital Culture & Copyright Law, in SOUND UNBOUND: SAMPLING DIGITAL MUSIC AND CULTURE 144 (Paul D. Miller ed., 2008) (commenting that given the unbalanced precedent for sampling, most samplers choose to settle out of court rather than risk an unfavorable decision); John Schietinger, Note and Comment, Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films: How the Sixth Circuit Missed a Beat on Digital Music Sampling, 55 DEPAUL L. REV. 209, 221 (2005) (“Most music sampling cases are settled before reaching the trial level.”). 10. See, e.g., Jonathan Lethem, The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism Mosaic, in SOUND UNBOUND: SAMPLING DIGITAL MUSIC AND CULTURE, supra note 9, at 33 (explaining the “open source culture” prevalent in black cultural forms and artistic production in general); Olufunmilayo B. Arewa, Copyright and Borrowing, in 1 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND INFORMATION WEALTH 33, 40 (Peter K. Yu, ed., 2007) [hereinafter Arewa, Borrowing] (“Borrowing is a norm in much cultural production that should be better incorporated